And there you have it! Maybe not a WHOLE DINING TABLE’S worth of products, but that isn’t what you asked for. All told, these products will take you a cumulative five minutes, tops, to get on your zone, and that’s only if you get distracted and start thinking about how, seeing as you’re kinda proficient with a thread and needle, you’d TOTALLY be just as capable with a lasso, no question…nah, guys, I would suck. I have no horse in that fight. That’s why I’m here giving you a complete shopping list of all the stuff you need to look a teense more like, “Oh, zang, that girl looks like she is wearing the perfect amount of makeup to look like no makeup at all!” And they said it couldn’t be done… X ARS
I, like many teenage girls, have trouble coming to terms with my appearance, particularly my face. Over the years I have endured harsh comments from my high school classmates, strangers, my siblings, and even my mum, about how small my eyes are, how ugly my nose is, etc. There is no feature of my face that I like. How do I stop feeling so gross about myself? —Anonymous

I’ve never met you, but I know how you’re feeling. I’ve felt the same way my whole life. Starting from when I was six years old, I was told by family members that my skin was too dark, my face too pudgy, my nose too broad. I grew up always feeling as though I wasn’t pretty. How could I be, when my own family couldn’t accept me?

But the older I got, the more I realized that their comments came from a weird place of love and protection—they were worried others wouldn’t accept me and seemed to think that they way to show their love was by trying ot “fix” me. There are, of course, other people who are just mean. No matter what, though, you can choose to internalize their words—or not. It’s really empowering to brush it all off.

Because, my love, you don’t need to be fixed! I don’t need to see a photo of you to know that you are perfect just as you are—because you’re just as you are. It’s like that scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary where Mark Darcy says to Bridget, “I like you very much, just as you are”:

I say that to myself like a mantra now, because it’s what I’ve always wanted somebody to say to me, but nobody really ever has, and I don’t know if anyone ever will. I figured out that feeling less gross about myself has a lot to do with me. You have to choose how you want to view yourself, and how you’re going to feel. Some days, I don’t want to walk down the street because I feel so ugly, or like I take up so much space on the sidewalk, in the supermarket, etc.—and I wish I could just be as tiny as I’m feeling inside. But do you know what breaks that cycle? Being on team ME.

What would it take for you to accept yourself? In my case, it was avoiding fashion and celebrity magazines, refusing to compare myself with others, and avoiding thinking or saying derogatory things about my appearance. Every time I hear or think something mean, I remind myself that I know they’re wrong. (Try it—it’ll make your life a lot easier.) Instead of letting people hurt me, I console myself like I’m my friend, because, of course, I am. “Fariha,” I say, “You’re so great. I love you. You’re smart, you’re kind, you care about people, you want to change the world.” Make a list of all the things you like about yourself—or even a list of people you love or find inspiring—and put it somewhere you can see. Put up illustrations that you like on it, or cool quotes like this one from the writer Audre Lorde: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

When I’m feeling especially self-conscious, I make myself happy by watching an episode of The Mindy Project, going to Sephora or the bookstore, buying a delicious latte, or sitting and talking to a friend who loves me very much, just as I am, and vice versa. Find those people! They’ll make up for the ones who make you feel bad about yourself. And if you don’t have people like that in your life right now, it’s OK, because being happy, in large part, means being your own best friend at all times—which is to say, being TEAM YOU. What would you tell someone you loved if they came to you with this question? Say that to yourself.

We are always going to have these bodies, so let’s make them work for us. Respect what you are: You are golden. It’s definitely a process, but with a little work and faith, you’ll start to know that’s true. —Fariha Roísín

Fariha Roísín is a writer that loves love. Follow her frustrations with the patriarchy on Twitter @fariharoisin.